In communication networks, e.g., a cellular network as specified by 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), it is known to implement monitoring functionalities, e.g., for supporting management and maintenance of the communication network. In order to allow comprehensive monitoring, a various kinds of nodes of the communication network may be involved in the monitoring.
However, certain nodes of a communication network, such as a base station of a cellular network, may have only limited computing resources. For example, the computing resources may be limited by the capabilities of a CPU (Central Processing Unit), RAM (Random Access Memory), or non-volatile storage capacity of such node. Accordingly, it is problematic to implement such nodes with monitoring functionalities which require a significant amount of computing resources, such as statistical analysis. For example, such statistical analysis could be based on monitored events related to a user equipment (UE).
Further, in cellular network scenarios implementation of statistical analysis in a given node may be complex due to mobility of UEs. For example, some events related to a certain UE may occur at one node, whereas other events of the same type occur at another node, because the UE has moved from one cell to another cell of the cellular network. In such cases, recording a statistic which is based on the event may require collecting information from multiple nodes. Therefore, such statistics would normally be generated at centralized nodes. However, for some applications, it may also be desirable to have such statistic available not only in centralized nodes, but for example also in the nodes to which the monitored events relate, including not only the nodes at which the events occurred in the past. In other words, if a UE is in the service area of a given node, for the statistic not only the events which occurred at this node may be relevant, but also the events which occurred while the UE was in the service area of other nodes.
A known approach to address the above issue is to maintain the statistic at a centralized node and to provide it to other nodes upon request, e.g., as in the reporting mechanisms of the Policy and Charging Control (PCC) architecture defined in 3GPP TS 23.203 V12.2.0 (2013-September). However, this typically means that the statistic is not immediately available at such other nodes if needed, which is not acceptable in some cases. For example, a base station may need to optimize its performance with respect to a certain UE and therefore request the statistic from the centralized node. However, when the statistic becomes available at the base station, the UE may already have left the service area of the base station.
Further, some statistics may be based on events related to multiple UEs, which further complicates handling of the statistics.
Accordingly, there is a need for techniques which allow for efficiently monitoring a communication network.